El director de l'OEIAC, Albert Sabater, imparteix la ponència "A Tale at the Crossroads of Artificial Intelligence, Social Assessment and Demography" en el cicle de seminaris 2020-2021 organitzats pel Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona).

A Tale at the Crossroads of Artificial Intelligence, Social Assessment and Demography
 
In more and more countries, policymakers increasingly use Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to decide on public service provisions and state benefits among their citizens whose sociodemographic profiles are assessed and evaluated for decision making. This applies, for example, to assigning child allowances, unemployment benefits, health insurances or retirement. In doing so, AI-based social assessment tecnologies are employed to define (and categorise) present and future human behaviour on scales such as deserving/non-deserving, desirable/non-desirable, high-perfoming/low-performing, acceptable/non-acceptable.

The purpose of this seminar is twofold. First, it will discuss how delegating decisions based on such value judgements to machines raises important issues, not least because societal core values are affected and at stake, and decisions on providing or refusing public social services have far-reaching consequences for the concerned individuals and their families. Second, it will highlight how demographic data are increasingly used for enhancing algorithms for AI systems in general and AI-based social assessment in particular.